


While Your Lips Are Still Red

by MelissaGT



Series: A Beautiful Tragedy [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Betrayal, Canon-Typical Violence, Coping, Explicit Language, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, LLF Comment Project, The Quinncident, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 15:21:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13684386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelissaGT/pseuds/MelissaGT
Summary: The Captain made her happy, and he had been content with that. Serving at her side was the best sort of consolation. A post any man would kill for. High risk, real challenge…the greatest rewards. And a friendship forged in the fires of battle that only the truest of warriors could begin to understand. That had been his lot.But still…He should have known.This is my personal interpretation of the betrayal scene for the Sith Warrior.





	While Your Lips Are Still Red

**Author's Note:**

> Hold onto your butts...
> 
> Normally I put song titles at the end, but yeah...just do it. *sobs*
> 
> "While Your Lips Are Still Red" - Nightwish
> 
> This came about as a Tumblr prompt made by my friend, Tashlen, for Pierce with my Sith Warrior, Akori'ira (Kira) - "Things you said that I wish you hadn’t"

Imperial Space, Transponder Vessel – Pierce

_He should have known. Something had been off, not quite right, tickling at the back of his mind. But, like a fool, he’d ignored his first instincts._

_He should have known._

_He’d realized early on that he had feelings for her, right from that first day on Taris. She was strong, confident…immortal. Beautiful and funny and real. Not to mention those sharp tattoos…with an even sharper tongue. Every man on that base wanted her. She never gave him any reason to believe it was mutual, but there it was – he’d fallen in love with her just the same. Even after she married that pretentious, tight-arsed, brown nosing, twat…_

_He should have known._

_The Captain made her happy, and he had been content with that. Serving at her side was the best sort of consolation. A post any man would kill for. High risk, real challenge…the greatest rewards. And a friendship forged in the fires of battle that only the truest of warriors could begin to understand. That had been his lot._

_But still…_

_He should have known._

_From the first moment he laid eyes on Malavai Quinn…he should have seen it coming...b_ _ecause as the doors slammed shut behind them, locking them in a seemingly empty room, he knew right away that it was too late…_

\---------------

His head hurt. Like really hurt. And his teeth felt…fuzzy. Itchy? That was a better word. Right at the backs of his molars. There was something else though. An all-over tingling…and smoke, like the kind from an electrical fire. Not to mention the unmistakable metallic twang of his own blood. Bloody hell, getting stunned never got any easier.

Wincing at the pain bouncing around between his temples, Pierce cracked an eye open to see the solid, vertical line of a duracrete surface stretched out before him. No, wait…horizontal. The floor. He groaned, trying his best to push himself up onto his forearms, but his arms didn’t quite want to listen to his commands just yet. Now everything hurt, not just his head. He swallowed, wrinkling his nose at the nasty taste in his mouth, and spat out a stream of red-tinged saliva onto the floor.

How long had he been out? Two minutes? Three? It felt like an eternity.

His mind was a haze. Through the fog, he managed to pull together a blurred series of sounds and images – doors slamming shut…the echoed click of a blaster winding up…the startled look on the Wrath’s face when he’d shoved her suddenly to the side…the morph in her expression, from surprise to realization and finally to anger as she toppled onto the floor like a sack of potatoes…

…and then nothing…

Groaning again, he ignored the screaming protestations shooting through his extremities, and managed to scrabble his arms and legs beneath him, putting himself into a crawling position on all fours. He pushed himself through it. Pain meant he was alive, even if every muscle felt like it was on fire, thanks to the seizing and cramping that had racked his body when he'd pushed her out of the way, driving himself directly into the path of that stun blast. 

OH, FUCK…

_“What have I done?”_

An armored fist involuntarily clenched shut, clutching at his rifle’s shoulder strap where it lay on the floor, looped around the flat of his hand. It was the only thing he could see. That and the color red. The whispered voice had come from behind, and there was no question as to who it belonged to. Summoning every last drop of rage in his belly, Pierce grunted and growled his way to his feet, rifle at the ready, preparing himself for the worst. It didn’t work.

The man was kneeling, rocking back and forth like a baby over a crumpled and broken form. One of her arms was sticking out in the wrong direction, and her lekku were flung every which way, bent and curled at angles that would have surely been painful, knowing how sensitive the Twi'leki appendages were. As he got closer, the scent of burnt flesh hit him like a hammer upside the face.

Raising his rifle, Pierce forced himself to tear his gaze away from her and take aim at the kneeling man. The one with flawless hair and perfectly manicured…everything. The one who was her husband, who was supposed to protect her. Love her. Die for her. The man who was too busy blathering to himself to notice the mountain of a man approaching with a blaster rifle keened on his pretty, traitorous head.

“Step away, Quinn…” There was no response. Either the man hadn’t heard him or didn’t care. “I said step away, or I _will_ shoot.” Still nothing.

There were so many tempting scenarios, all of them ending the same way. From beating the man into a bloody pulp with the butt of his rifle, to strangling him with the shoulder strap, to feeling his skull crush between his fists, to simply shooting him with a single shot between the eyes…they all blended together into one fit of barely contained rage. All Pierce could hear was the blood coursing between his ears. But he couldn’t do it. Not yet. At least not until he was sure…

“Get away from her!” he howled, kicking the man square in the shoulder, flinging him backwards on his arse so that he had some space to kneel down on one knee next to her. That had gotten his attention, but the traitor made no move to get up. He sat there quietly, his gaze holding none of the normal contempt Pierce was so used to seeing.

Balancing the rifle on his knee, he pulled a glove off with his teeth and placed two fingers against the side of her exposed neck. She was alive. That was all that mattered. He let out a ragged puff of breath, finally able to breathe normally again. Her heartbeat was strong, and it beat steadily through his fingertips.

His fingers slipped down from the pulse point to the side of her chin, turning her face towards him. He had to risk it, because he hadn’t been able to figure out where that awful, sweet smell was coming from. He knew it all too well. And he knew what it felt like. Blaster burns. She was wearing a full suit of armor. That only left one-

HOLY FUCK.

Pierce had to force the bile that had risen in his throat back down. He could do this. He was a soldier. They’d all gotten hurt before. But her eye. It was…gone. There was nothing there but a charred, still-smoking hole.

“I didn’t have any choice…Baras…he would have killed me.”

“CHOICE? There is always a choice!” Every bloody, gory image came rushing back in force. His fist clenched and unclenched at his side, fighting the instinct to just reach out and throttle the traitor to death with his own boot laces. But then he saw the marks on the man’s neck. The blood-shot vessels in his eyes, both evidence that she’d very nearly choked the life right out of him.

How he wished she’d finished the job. He couldn’t do it. He wanted to, more than anything else at the moment. But that was her decision to make.

Gathering her limp form into his arms, he quickly cast his gaze about, taking in their surroundings. All around them was the scattered and carved up remains of what appeared to have been two battle droids. He didn’t need a play-by-play to know what had happened. Quinn had used his position with her to get her guard down. He was the last person she would have expected. Get the drop on her and use the brief element of shocked surprise to quickly overpower her with the droids.

“You chose wrong…like the coward you are.” Grunting, he stood up, hiking her body higher against his chest, careful to avoid jostling the obviously broken arm too much. She felt so…broken. Weak. Her head lolled to one side, hiding the unnerving hole in the side of her face. “A man would have chosen to die.”

_I would have chosen to die…_

“I never wanted to hurt her…”

“Keep telling yourself that it matters as you get up off your traitorous arse and open the fucking doors.” He bit the last few words off, spitting them out in front of him as he walked. Loosening his grip momentarily, he raised a wrist to his face, opening a comm channel to the ship with the tip of his nose. “Vette…VETTE!”

_“Yeah?!? What’s up?”_

“Get the ship ready to move to the nearest port with a full med facility.”

_Why, what happened?”_

“Just _do it_ for fuck’s sake!”

Finally lurched into action, Quinn rose to his feet and Pierce had to fight the very real desire to punt him in the arse as he passed. One word. If he said one word, he’d do it.

\---------------

Crew Quarters, _The Valkyrie_ \- Pierce

“That cock-up is to go nowhere near her. Get it?” Pierce placed a hand on the Talz’s white, shaggy shoulder, waiting for a whistling nod before entering the crew barracks.

The Wrath had wanted nothing to do with the med bay, and even less to do with her own quarters. In fact, she’d virtually broken down into a limb-flinging free-for-all panic at the mere suggestion. And so, he'd carried her to the only other place with a bed. One glance out the door told him that Quinn was still out there in the crew commons area, stiffly pacing back and forth like a recruit on inspection day. And he couldn’t have cared less about it. Let the bastard rot. Or drop dead. Right there.

Everybody on the ship knew what had happened. How could they not? Vette was flying the ship and Jaesa had to help him get her out of her armor, which was a near impossible task with that arm. They couldn’t do anything with it. That would have to wait, because he wasn’t about to let Quinn within spitting distance of her.

If she asked for him, then so be it. But until that happened, if that happened, Broonmark would be her lumbering hulk of a shadow…when he wasn’t at her side, of course. And he wouldn’t be leaving her side.

As he worked through the ordeal of extricating himself from his own armor, each piece uncharacteristically cast aside, all but forgotten, a purple eye stared out at him from beneath the darkness of the bunk. His bunk. That was the one she’d wanted. It was the eye of a frightened prey animal. Not the eye of the warrior goddess he knew, his best friend…the woman he loved. She was in shock. Whether she actually saw him or not, he wasn’t sure.

“I have something for the pain.”

“I don’t want it.”

“Will you at least let me clean you up?” He knew enough not to push. He slid a stool over to the side of the bunk and plopped down with her knees between his own, waiting. Nothing. She just kept staring ahead, her broken arm held awkwardly against her side like that of an injured bird. A very dangerous injured bird. 

It was time for a decision. Throw the grenade and hope for the best. Leaning over, he picked up a washcloth from the pot of warm, kolto-infused water he’d brought with him and held it tentatively near her dirt-streaked cheek. Still nothing. His heart was pounding in his chest, thrumming through his ears in the muffled silence between them. The cloth inched closer and closer, and all the while he watched her face for any sign that she was going to push him away or even worse, strike out.

But she didn’t.

One stroke. Two. The wet cloth cut through the smeared mixture of sweat, soot, and hydraulic fluid, revealing fresh, white skin beneath. Another swipe and the sharp line of the tattoo slashing across her cheek had been made whole again. Turning his attention momentarily to the bucket at his side, he swished and squeezed the cloth clean in the water, moving back in for another swipe, firming up the inky black jawline.

He let out a huff of breath, forcing himself to relax. The silence was thick, almost smothering. And for a moment, he thought she was holding her breath, but then he could see her nostrils flare with each shallow intake. At least it was something. So far, so good.

Completely absorbed in his task, he slowly ran the cloth down the side of her neck, all the way to her collarbone. It passed over the smooth curve of her throat. Swiped beneath her chin. All the while, that blank lavender eye started ahead at nothing, and he tried not to let it unsettle him.

One side was done. But what remained, the left side, was…not going to be easy. He cleaned the cloth again, starting low this time, delaying the inevitable. By the time he reached her chin, he was holding his breath. Using his free hand, he gently turned her face to the side, allowing him to get a better look at the damage.  

She’d been lucky. Or very unlucky, depending on how one looked at it. She’d taken the shot directly in the eye. Almost perfectly. There was no blood, because the heat of the blaster burn had cauterized the wound, but there would be scarring. From the very top of her cheekbone to the tail of her tattooed brow, she would have one hell of a nasty scar. The flesh around the eye socket was burned and blackened and would need to be cut away when they reached the med facility.

They were pretty much a matching set now. He’d taken a rather epic spray of shrapnel to the right side of his face about a year prior, though thankfully his eye had survived.

He made a series of cautious, dabbing passes up over her cheek, barely grazing the outline of the burns. She flinched under his ministrations, the purple eye sliding shut, and he held her steady with the palm of his other hand laid flat against the cleaned side of her face. What he wasn’t expecting was for her to lean into the touch.

Holding his breath again, he waited, studying the twitch of her nose as she breathed, looking for any sign or warning of an incoming bad reaction. But all that came was a pinch at the center of her brows, a flutter of her eyelid, as if the eye beneath was blinking even though the lid was already shut. The cloth came up again, moving towards her forehead…

Her good hand shot out and grabbed at his wrist, holding it immobile. The eye snapped open, focusing on his face, maybe seeing him for the first time since...everything. And then it came. There was a slight tremble at her lower lip, the pinch of her brow turning to an actual furrow. A tear slid down her freshly-cleaned cheek. A soft whimper. She was fighting it for all it was worth.

“ _Why_?” One word. It was the only thing she was able to get out before her voice cracked and was cut off around a hiccoughing sob. Her fingers squeezed as tightly as they could around his wrist, clinging on for dear life.

Dropping the towel, he slid his other hand around the back of her neck, right below the base of her lekku, bringing their foreheads together. “Shhhhh…I’m here.” He exhaled the words between them, feeling her sobbing pants puff up against his face. There was nothing he could say to her that would be a sufficient answer, or that could even begin to fix this. But he could be there for her. He would be there for her.

“Please don’t leave me…”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Feeling her release her death grip on his wrist, he traced the callused pads of his fingertips over the solid cut of her cheekbone, following along with the outline of the tattooed stripe. He was trying to pretend not to notice how her face felt against his, how their noses brushed side by side. Their lips were practically touching, and he imagined he could almost feel the heat from them. It couldn’t have been a more inappropriate time to be thinking about such things, but…there it was.

Gore didn’t bother him. He was a soldier. He’d finished missions riddled with blaster wounds, broken ribs, ankles…you name it…completely high on adrenaline and had managed to fuck his way into a drunken stupor before even thinking about seeking medical attention. The fact that he could smell the sickly sweet, smoky char on her flesh only inches away from his nose, that if he were to open his eyes he would see only blackness looking back at him on one side…that didn’t matter. Not in the least.

They were battle-born. Pierce understood her in ways that her husband never could. There were only two places in life where she could ever feel truly alive. Fighting. And fucking. And he was the same way. It shouldn't have come as a surprise, then, when he felt her push forward, brushing her parted lips against his.

It was tentative at first. Soft. But when he didn’t pull away, her touches became more aggressive. Almost frantic. White fingers curled around the edges of an ear, trailed down the side of his neck to bite into the flesh above his collarbone, pulling him closer. He let it happen. He couldn’t help it. For so long, he’d imagined what it would have felt like to have those lips against his…in the shower, in his bunk, in her bed…banging up against a wall so loudly that her smug bastard of a husband could hear every vivid detail.

Above the always-present hum of the ship’s engines, he heard her moan, felt her tongue reach out, desperate for contact as her mouth moved over his. He couldn’t hold back any longer. She was right there, right in front of him. Breathing out a sigh of defeat, he shoved his chin forward in earnest, their tongues finally crashing together to a chorus of muffled whimpers and half-growls. They were alive, that was the only thing that mattered, and the occasional yelp of pain that broke through the air around them only served as a reminder that they were still there, together, in that room and on that ship, completely wrapped up in each other.

He wanted to touch her. Hold her. Crush her against him. She tasted of smoke and sweat and the salt from her tears, all cut with the sharp, herbal thread of kolto...and something else that was distinctly her. Everything was happening so fast and he barely realized what he was doing until he felt his hand at her hip, digging into the pale flesh beneath the sweat-soaked fabric of her tank top...shifting, pulling her to the edge of the bunk so he could get as close as possible.

There was another yelp and he felt the harried and squeezing grasp of a hand rush up the inside of his thigh, slipping under the leg of his undershorts, bunching the material up more and more the higher it got. He was pretty sure he couldn’t breathe anymore. Every nerve in his body was on edge, his stomach was coiled, ready to explode, waiting to feel her touch. This was what he wanted, what he’d always wanted…right?

But…

No. This was wrong.

“ _Wait_.” He snatched at her wrist through his shorts, holding her hand in place just as she’d done earlier.

“What?” Snapping her hand back as if burned by fire, she froze, confused and upset. She turned her head away, burying her chin into a shrugged shoulder in an attempt to hide the damaged side of her face. Exactly who she was hiding from only she could know for sure, but he had a good idea, and he didn't like it one bit. She should never have to feel the need to hide from anybody, him least of all. “Don’t you want me?”

Bloody hell, yes, he did. But, not like this. Far be it from him to deny a Sith anything, especially something he’d wanted for so long himself, but she was in shock, her emotions were all over the map, amplified a thousand-fold by her very nature. She couldn’t possibly have been thinking straight. This was a coping mechanism, a way for her to feel wanted and alive, and he just happened to be the nearest cock handy to jump on.

That part he was okay with. He’d take whatever she was willing to give. But, he needed to be sure it was what she really wanted. There was too much between them to just throw it away if she had regrets later. He was in a precarious situation. She was an apex predator who wasn’t used to feeling vulnerable and she sure didn’t know how to process rejection. If he were to turn her away now, he could very well ruin any chance of the future, and quite possibly their friendship. Sith could be fickle like that.

She was volatile at the best of times, and here at the very worst, she was a ticking time bomb. She could so quickly and easily swing from lust to despair to anger and back again without a second thought. And broken arm be damned, she could lash out, throw him across the room, jump him, kill him…put a hole in the ship…

But he wasn’t afraid of her. He could never be afraid of her, which set him apart from most other Imperials, including her own husband.

“You know I do…” He’d never kept that a secret from her. Their flirtations had always woven seamlessly in with their friendly banter, both on and off the battlefield, and he’d always made it clear that all she had to do was say the word. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he added, turning her face back towards his with the back of a knuckle against her chin. “Nothing could ever change that…”

“But?”

“Kira…” At the sound of her name slipping from his lips, her single lavender eye widened in surprise, and then sudden realization. His heart started pounding again, this time to the point where he was sure she could hear it. He wanted to tell her. He knew it was foolish and selfish and was the absolute worst of times…if there was ever a good time. But she seemed so broken and alone. He wanted her to know that he’d always be there for her. That he’d die for her.

Taking a deep breath, he opened his mouth to speak, summoning the will to say what he thought he had to say. This was it. This could be the only chance he’d ever get…

_I love you. I’ve always loved you. You’re the fire and the sword. You’re everything._

“Mason… _please_.” An index finger shot up to his lips, stopping him in his tracks before he could get the words out. “Don’t say it…” Moving her forehead back to rest against his, he focused on her long, dark lashes, fanned out against her cheek, still wet with shed tears. “I can’t…I just can’t. There's nothing left...”

He hesitated for a moment, letting the desperation in her voice ring through his head. The sensation of her forehead against his. The pull of her fingers brushing at the back of his neck. The spicy leather scent on her skin, ever-present and strong, even when cutting through the rank char and sweat from…the day that would likely go down in history as the worst ever…for the both of them.

She was the woman he’d gladly follow into oblivion. The strongest person he’d ever met. He would be whatever she needed. A friend. A lover. A companion. A brother in arms. All of the above. And he would never saddle her with his own burdens.

“Just help me forget…”

“Please…”

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so here we are. The Quinncident. ON VALENTINE'S DAY! 
> 
> I've said it before. Please *do not* take this interpretation as me saying that I hate Quinn, or me hating on Quinn. This was all Pierce here, people. I like Quinn as a character. He's complex, and I don't have to like or agree with everything he does in order to appreciate him as a character. So please...take that as you will...
> 
> I did use a bit of leeway here, because there are so many things about the in-game scene that bugged me. Such as standing around talking about it first like every other Bond villain. Or the magical flashy-wavy device that knocks out only the companion, but not Quinn or the Warrior. Or the only options in the end being I WUV YOOOOOO or *grumble grumble* LET'S NEVER TALK ABOUT THIS AGAIN. Um..no.
> 
> This story is part of [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), whose goal is to improve communication between readers and authors.  
> This author invites:
> 
> Short comments  
> Long comments  
> Questions  
> Constructive criticism  
> “<3” as extra kudos  
> Reader-reader interaction
> 
> This author replies to comments.


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